You know that moment when you catch your reflection and barely recognize yourself? When five minutes of activity leaves you gasping like you’ve just run a marathon? Yeah, welcome to the reality check that sparked my Winter Renaissance.
For the past few years, I’ve been what I’d call “fitness dormant”. Kids, building a house, life happening. All of it consumed the time and energy I used to pour into staying fit. Somewhere between the last brick and the last school run, my conditioning vanished. My strength evaporated. My leanness? Ancient history. And honestly, it started to frustrate me more than I wanted to admit.
The physique deterioration was real, but what really got under my skin was losing something I used to own. The ability to push hard and keep going. I needed to change things.
The Discipline Question
Here’s the thing about me. I’m not naturally disciplined. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but we’re being real here. What I am is competitive, desperately so. Competition is my rocket fuel. It always has been. Give me a goal, a ranking to climb, or someone to race against, and suddenly all that discipline appears like magic. The motivation clicks into place, and suddenly I’m putting in the work.
So I leaned into what I know works. I set a goal and built infrastructure around it.
Enter Zwift and the Indoor Setup
I invested in a Zwift compatible indoor trainer, the Van Rysel D100 paired with the Zwift cog. Added to that is my trusty Cube Nuroad Pro bike. The beauty of Zwift isn’t just the convenience of training from home; it’s the gamification, the competitive structure, the ranking system. It’s the fact that I can race against time, against people, against my own previous efforts. That competitive element? That’s what gets me off the couch and onto that bike.
Twice a week, I’m committing to purposeful Zwift sessions: epic races, FTP work, Alpe de Zwift climbs. Not just mindless pedaling, but training with intention. Something to measure against, something to beat.
The Attic Transformation
This is where things get interesting. My attic used to be my home office, a quiet space tucked away for work calls and focused time. But necessity breeds creativity, and space breeds compromise. The home office didn’t disappear, but it got company. Now that attic is this beautifully chaotic hybrid space with one corner still holding my desk for work, another corner hosting my indoor bike trainer setup pointed at a monitor for Zwift sessions, and the final section serving as my strength zone. Free weights, a Hex bar, kettlebells all living side by side with spreadsheets and video calls.
It’s not fancy. It’s not Instagram worthy. But it works. I’ve got everything I need without needing to leave the attic. A quick video call ends, the Zwift session begins, and between those are the kettlebell swings and compound lifts designed to build athletic muscle, not just the vanity kind.
The Bigger Picture
This Winter Renaissance isn’t just about vanity metrics or hitting some arbitrary fitness number. My golf game has suffered too. Muscle translates directly into club speed, flexibility, power. All of it’s been compromised, and the cumulative frustration finally reached a breaking point.
The plan is clear. Build through winter, test on gravel bike competitions in March and April, take those gains into outdoor riding season, and show up next year in a completely different physical state. Not just for the photo op, but for the actual capability to do the things I love doing.
Twice weekly Zwift sessions. Consistent strength work. A competitive structure that feeds my need for motivation. A goal worth hitting.
That’s the Winter Renaissance, I’m all in on it.
